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Impacts of Levy Limits

Posted on: March 13, 2019

Village of Rib Lake

How does the levy limit impact your community's services? Due to expenses rising in cost but with little or no increase in levy, we can barely maintain what we have and not pursue any new opportunities for improvements to the village. If we want to improve our parks/park buildings, we have to beg local organizations to donate towards such items as playground equipment or roof replacements on the park shelters.

How does the levy limit impact your community's budgeting practices and finances, eg, your amount of borrowing? Our Village Board does not like to borrow money and pay interest and so have worked very hard over the years to pay our debt way down. They try to set a set aside a little each year for something they know they have to buy say 5 or 10 years from now. But they know in the end that they will have to borrow for roads & streets projects for sure.

How does the levy limit impact your community's staffing levels and employee compensation? The levy limit makes it impossible to keep up with health insurance premium increases. The village has had to go to much higher deductibles as well as making employees pay a larger percent of the premiums. We have reduced Public Works staff from 3 full time down to 2.5. We also had to reduce our one and only full time Police Officer down to 32 hours per week to cut costs.

Anything else you'd like to say regarding the impact of levy limits on your community? We understand that there has to be some control in levy increases, but because they have been so strict now for such a long time, it is very difficult to keep running the village. Also the levy limit worksheets themselves have gotten so comprehensive that our Village Clerk of 36 years along with the Village President admits that it is a struggle every year to complete it.